pulling petals
by livvylovesyou
Summary: He loves her. She loves him not. It's kind of sick, actually. /Rori.


**For The Topaz Awards challenge. I'm sorry this is shit. I can't write Rori. Ughhhhhhh whyyyy**

**(gaaaaaahhhhh this is terrible why am i publishing it i don't even know)**

* * *

**Edit: I don't know why, but for some reason people seem to like this fic. Because it won the challenge. **

**And then it won another contest for best challenge oneshot. **

***le shrug***

**But THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE :) I'm not the kind of person who wins things so this is, like, massively crazy and I love you all :)**

* * *

Pairing: Tori and Robbie

Prompt: always fighting dirty  
Quote: "Actually, she wouldn't care if you had a third eye and webbed feet."

* * *

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once." - John Green, _The Fault in Our Stars_

* * *

Falling in love is really an interesting thing.

Robbie Shapiro is twelve when he first falls for Tori Vega. Like, actually falls for her. He's perched precariously on the top of the play structure at recess. He has his GameBoy out and two friends egging him on as he _fucking_ _owns _at Super Mario and all of a sudden in the corner of his line of vision there's a little girl with dark brown hair and a Rainbow Dash tank top and she's playing with her pretty little friend and smiling at _him_.

She is hanging upside down on the monkey bars with grass stains on her knees and fallen leaves in her hair, and her cheeks bright red with the blood rushing to her head. There is laughter in her eyes as she casually dismounts with the practiced grace of someone who's done this way more than she wants to admit. Tori reaches up to the monkey bars she can barely reach, steadying herself, then turns to the curly-haired girl in the pink dress smiling stupidly next to her, points up at him, and laughs.

Tori Vega laughed at him.

The Game Boy falls from his hands and he swipes clumsily at the air, diving for it as it falls, and he falls too as he follows it down, landing on the barkmulch below with a thud that knocks the air from his lungs and shoves his glasses painfully up the bridge of his nose.

He fixes them tenderly, checking for broken bones (he's cracked a rib, he's sure of it), and looks back at the girls, who are doubled over in hysterics. And as the recess bell rings and calls them back inside, and Robbie is still scraping himself off the ground, Tori skips past, flanked by the little one with the curly hair. And as she passes, she slows, looking down at him with glee in her deep brown eyes.

"Nice fall, Fish Face."

He wants to die. He wants to melt into the soil and stop existing, right there.

Instead of taking the bus home he goes back to the playground and sits down on the steps. He pulls a daisy from the flowerbeds, rolling the stem between his fingertips. It's stupid, he knows that as soon as he pulls the first petal from it's place. It's not going to change her mind about him, but he can sort of instill some sort of hope in himself that maybe, for a second, there's a chance.

She loves me.

She loves me not.

She loves me.

She loves me not.

He can't bring himself to finish stripping the petals. He needs to know that there's a chance. He can't let it land on "she loves me not". Playing the roulette like this kind of sucks. He guesses he'll never know where it finishes.

He's not sure he even wants to.

Robbie returns home that night and begs his mother for hours on end to let him switch schools. And after the classic "go to bed Robbie we'll talk about this tomorrow", he locks himself in the dark room and doesn't sleep for hours and just thinks about Tori and how _fucking cute_ she was when she was laughing at him and how it isn't fair.

His mother tells him about a remote boys' boarding school in Sacramento.

He leaves.

He gets a puppet and gets his mind off her. He gets friends. He doesn't get any other girls, but you know how it is.

He also gets into Hollywood Arts three years later, which is really cool. Maybe he can make new friends there. Maybe he'll be popular. Maybe he'll get a million girls. Maybe people will like him somewhat more than the kids in his elementary school did. Maybe he'll never have to go through that kind of trauma again.

Yep, Robbie is seriously hopeful about high school. Nothing, he reasons, is going to keep him down this year.

Until the first thing he hears when he steps into the hallways of his new school is "FISH FACE?!"

_She'd turned into a ginger_ is the first thing he notices. Tori's little curly-haired friend Kitty or whatever her name is. She is much too excited to see him.

"Fish Face, where'd you go? I haven't seen you since like sixth grade or something! Wow, that's cool, we know each other! What do you have first? I have acting. Let's go together!"

And that's how Robbie and Cat become OMGBFFs. Funny story, actually.

When asked about Tori, Cat says she'd gone to Sherwood Middle High because she didn't sing. Cat went to a performing middle school. They hadn't spoken in over a year. Maybe it was for the best, but he had really wanted to see her again, if only in the hope that she'd gotten fat and ugly and maybe he might have a chance in hell of dating her. Actually, he wouldn't care if she had a third eye and webbed feet. He just needs to see her.

He tells this to Cat. She grins. "No way, Robbie Shapiro."

* * *

Robbie's sixteen the next time he hears the words "Tori Vega". He's hanging out backstage at the showcase and there's this big thing with Annoying Trina and Talented Andre going down and he's really bored until this super hot girl goes out and sings _like a_ _fucking angel_ and then the curtains close and she's all "I'm Tori Vega" and the world shuts off.

Jesus Christ, she's sexy.

Sometime since the last time he saw her four years ago she got an annoying older sister named Trina and that's why she sang that night and that's also why she was coming to Hollywood Arts to ruin his inner peace and sully the spiritual waters of his sanctuary. And no doubt that that's going to happen, because of course she'll be good at everything in addition to being super hot and nothing can ever be the same.

Including him, since now that he's seen her again he'll never be satisfied until the day he tastes her perfect lips.

From that day forth Rex becomes so much more than a puppet. He's a crutch, a blind to hide behind, a way to get out the words he'd never be able to say to her. And when she reacts he can laugh it off and blame it on Rex ("Oh God Tori I swear he's got a mind of his own he's not a puppet pretend you didn't hear that") and fake-shush him and then go home and _fucking die inside_ because he can't talk to her like a normal human person. I mean, Jesus, he's seen how she looks at Beck and Andre and Ryder-fucking-Daniels and Danny-Cat's-Boyfriend and all those other guys. He would give anything for one of those looks.

He's not one of those guys. It hurts sometimes.

He does get up the courage to ask her out, though. It's weird. It doesn't work out.

Everything is awkward from the moment he asks her, a stiff, short, tongue-in-cheek sort of proposition that Tori awkwardly accepts. And then they part and he's pretty sure he's lost the ability to breathe because _she fucking said yes_ and oh my god everything is so shinybrightmagic and nothing hurts. Even though the car ride is awkward as hell when he can't find the words to say to her.

But when they get there it's almost magic. They go to an amusement park and ride all the roller coasters twice and he's never felt so alive. Not just living, but truly present in every sense of the word. It's an intoxicating feeling. He wants to keep it forever. She's still laughing when he drops her off at her house. She says she had fun, thanks him, and disappears. And he drives away, elated and lovesick, and keeps riding that high until he falls asleep. He can't help but think that this is it for them, that this is their moment, that he and Tori can finally be what he's always dreamed. He wants it to be amazing. He feels amazing.

She must not have felt the same, because she barely talks to him the next day.

He wants to call her. He wants to ask her what went wrong. He wants to know if she felt the same as he did. He wants to be alive again. But she doesn't talk to him and he doesn't talk to her and eventually everything goes back to the way it was.

Eventually he settles for Cat and she settles for him and they can finally be those storybook friends, BeckandJade and Tori pining after Andre and sortofRobbieandCat. He knows that's what she wants. And even though Cat knows that she'll never be what he really needs, she's okay with saying she's okay with it. It's sort of become their twisted routine, where he smiles at her when they pass in the halls and goes back to staring at Tori's ass the second Cat's out of view,

Cat takes his virginity the summer before senior year and it's awesome. He can't help thinking it should have been Tori, though.

He can't help thinking about Tori, ever. Call him crazy, but he believes in true love. And also that if you want something, it'll come to you. If it doesn't, you're not wanting hard enough.

He's so full of hope, Robbie Shapiro is. Well, that or total bullshit.

* * *

They're seventeen when Cam Denton moves to town and he can sing dance act talk dress kiss smile and Robbie can do none of that and it's bye-Robbie-hi-Cam in half a second.

It's the closest he's ever gotten to full on open-chest heartbreak. He's pretty sure it's not something you can bounce back from.

Worse than Cat's crazy obsession with Cam is Tori's, especially because it only takes her a matter of days to actually get the guy. Robbie can only watch in defeat. This was how it was supposed to be for him, to get the girl in a matter of minutes and fall in love and run away and get married and have a life. Somehow, in Robbie's fantasies, Cam Denton didn't exactly play into the picture.

He's lost Tori. He knows she was never his to begin with, but it still feels personal. Even Cat's gone. He doesn't even have her anymore, and he can't think about Tori the same way now that she's got a boyfriend. It's Robbie and that stupid puppet again, just like middle school. Life sucks.

"That stupid puppet" gets run over by a football player's monster truck around November of their senior year. He's not even sad about it.

Since he doesn't have Tori and he doesn't have Cat and everything sucks, he throws himself into his studies. By March, he knows he's going to be valedictorian, which makes it a little better. And makes Tori notice him for long enough to say "congratulations", which makes it worth it.

And then they don't talk much until graduation. She's too busy shining, he figures. To busy with Cam Denton is more like it.

And then comes graduation, and everything falls apart.

When they walk into the auditorium Robbie notices Tori come in looking gorgeous and sad, and she can't look at Cam and she doesn't look at him or anyone else, which is weird. Robbie is seated on the stage, where he can watch her and she hardly glances at him. He has no idea what happened, but Cam is smiling and Cat is smiling and BeckandJade are kissing and Andre's smiling and no one notices Tori. Robbie's alone on the stage and he doesn't know what to do. He wishes he could do something.

And then, halfway through the ceremony, Cam Denton gets his diploma. Cam Denton returns to his seat. And Cam Denton kisses Cat Valentine on the lips.

Behind them, he can see Tori start to cry.

It's time for his speech. But it feels wrong to do that now, not while she's standing in the back and he can tell she's crying from so far away.

She gets up and he knows she's about to leave. He can't let her leave. He can't let her walk away without thinking anyone even cared about her, and he can't let her leave without saying goodbye to her.

She's reaching for the door. There's still time.

"Class of 2012, um-" It's all eyes on Robbie, all but hers. She's almost gone. "Tori!"

She doesn't turn. It's time to go.

He forgets, momentarily, that he's still on stage. He has to follow her.

It's only when his feet start feeling lack of ground and the gravity kicks in that she finally notices his desperation, just in time to see him plummet to the floor. Her shock and sadness is the last thing he sees before he blacks out.

* * *

He wakes up in his own bed, icepack pressed to his chin, an angel sitting by his side.

On closer inspection, it appears to be simply Tori Vega, but she looks truly amazing in her graduation dress that's white with blue flowers, with her hair pulled back from her face and a dusty shine on her cheekbones and glitter on her eyes. He wants to smile but it hurts given his jaw, and it hurts more to see how sad she looks.

She looks up at him with his eyes open now and gives a shy smile. "Nice fall, Fish Face."

"Thanks." There's an awkward silence where they don't talk, and she looks so forlorn he can't even cope with the expression on her face. "What happened, Tori?"

"Well, you fell off the stage, for starters."

He cuts her off. "No, with you and Cam. Where did that come from?"

Her face collapses and her eyes begin to get shiny and it's awful to watch. Robbie tries to tell himself that this is Cam's fault, but it's not, it's his, and he feels _so fucking guilty_ for making her cry like this. Tori wipes furiously at her eyes, smudging her makeup onto her skin and up over the bridge of her nose. She sniffs, eyes hardening. "When a guy tells you he loves you, he's not supposed to go sleep with your best friend, is he?"

It takes a while to sink in. "Oh, God, Tori, I'm so sorry."

"No, it's fine." But her breath is shaking and her shoulders are tense and she's clenching her jaw as she talks and it's so obvious that she's anything but. "I'll get over him."

"He doesn't deserve you. He never did."

"I know."

"You okay?" What a stupid question.

"No. No, I'm not. I just want someone to love me, you know? Just love me, and not want anything in return. I don't want to be _used_ anymore. I'm so sick of all the jerks and all the lying. It's been nothing but lies. You know how it goes, you get caught in one lie and the whole thing comes crashing down. Now I don't even know if he ever told me the truth." She wipes at her cheeks again, sighing deeply from a place of sorrow he's not sure he'll ever be able to reach. "Why can't people just be capable of just loving someone?"

Oh Tori, you have no idea.

Oh Robbie, you poor soul.

It seems almost dirty to tell her now, so he just hugs her hard and she lays down next to him and curls up against his side and they're both still for a long time. "What about your grad party?" he finally asks.

"I'd much rather be here." she says, closing her eyes. He wants to say more, but he's pretty sure she's fallen asleep.

They stay there for almost an hour, Robbie awake and Tori sleeping on his bed against him. He can't touch her. He wants to stroke her hair, but it feels wrong. It's intrusive just to stay. So he gets up and moves downstairs to the couch and lets her sleep.

She's gone by the time he wakes up the next morning, but "I'd much rather be here" still plays on over and over in his mind. Robbie doesn't get it. When she says she'd "much rather be here". Here in his house? Not there? Here with him? He has no clue what she means. He knows what he wants her to mean, but that's another story.

* * *

They don't talk much all summer.

It hurts a lot more than he lets on. Sometimes he stays up for hours on end wanting to call her. And then he always ends up falling asleep depressed. He'll never be good enough for her, she burns too brightly and he's just not even her type, that he knows for sure.

They don't see much at all of each other until she needs him to drive him to the airport. And the car ride is silent. It's awkward. Every once in a while her lips part like she has something to say, but then she shakes her head and goes back to staring out the window.

They both go through security and he stands with her at the gate and she hugs him and it's magic. "Have fun in New York." he says. He wishes she wasn't leaving. Tori stares at him for a long time, lips twitching upward like she knows a secret. Finally, she speaks.

"Cat told me you liked me."

It takes him aback. "Oh."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I did. Rex did." It's a stupid excuse but it's all he can manage at a time like this. He should have known it wasn't good enough.

"That doesn't count." she says, crossing her arms, tapping her toe on the ground.

"Whatever." He can't look at her. It's hard.

"Hey, keep in touch, okay?"

"Yeah. Sure. Okay."

And then she leans in and kisses him on the lips and it's everything he ever dreamed it would be and somehow more, like a lightning bolt hitting him from within and baking him from the inside out. She's amazing and he's dying and flying at the same time and it's over far too quickly, hot pleasure like pain that spreads through his body and leaves him needing more.

"Take care, Robbie." And then she walks through the gate and she's gone and he wants to scream and cry at the same time.

"Bye." he says to no one.

And he hates her, he really does, or maybe he just wants to hate her and the way she can just kiss him and walk away without feeling a thing. Hell, he's crushed by just the kiss, but now she's gone and he doesn't think he'll ever be able to climb out of that pit she's trapped him in. And as he's driving home all he can do is think of her and her lips on his lips and it makes him want to cry.

It's like picking at daisy petals. He loves her.

He hates her.

He loves her.

He hates her.

He loves her.

He'll never be able to stop thinking about her, he's sure as hell of that.

She fights dirty, Tori Vega does. She always has.


End file.
